


Death and Taxes

by lferion



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Challenge Response, Drabble, Gen, doubledrabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-04-13
Updated: 2007-04-13
Packaged: 2017-10-02 09:56:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lferion/pseuds/lferion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A taxing double drabble</p>
            </blockquote>





	Death and Taxes

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Amonitrate's 'Death and Taxes' drabble challenge for US 2007 tax filing weekend on highlander_lj.
> 
> Warning: Possible dictionary/thesaurus abuse.

Taxes were older than Death, thought Methos, grimly, as he wrestled with the labyrinthine forms of Pierce Adam's income tax.

He'd paid tribute, tithes, scutage and scot, fees, tolls, octroi and imposts, tariffs, duty, custom, cess, and Peter's pence. He'd even paid danegeld (only once -- and that as an excuse to lull the 'danes' as he followed them to their lair and unleashed Death). He'd paid in scrip and kind and coin, bread and beer, the use of his body and the letting of his blood, and more than once with his life. With death.

And even Death paid tax.

Oh, he paid no excise levied by chieftain, assessed by senate, no due or gild demanded, shrilly, by petty king, certainly no bail imposed by oily, so-sincere priests. Others might accede to such; not Death. No, Death was taxed by Kronos, by Caspian. A quarter-share of mayhem's reaping: gold and grain and groveling. A nightmare tax.

Methos thought of an ivory handled knife and Bordeaux, of Cassandra and Silas, and the look he still caught, sometimes, in Duncan's eyes, and knew he was still paying Death's taxes.

Mere money to the United States Department of Revenue was nothing in comparison.


End file.
